


Eggs Over Easy

by Glossolalia



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe, Breakfast, Cheerleaders, College, Denny's, Eventual Smut, Lance (Voltron)-centric, Laser Tag, Light Angst, M/M, Recreational Drug Use, Romantic Comedy, older!Lance, older!everyone - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-06
Updated: 2016-09-06
Packaged: 2018-08-13 08:40:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7969909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Glossolalia/pseuds/Glossolalia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lance wants to build a professional laser tag team, and by chance, meets an ex-cheerleader waiter at Denny's with enough nothing going on in his life to agree to help him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Eggs Over Easy

**Author's Note:**

> So, anyway.

_Mullet's in my section again._

Well, technically, Lance isn't sure if his waiter has a mullet, but the fringe overlay framing his ponytail implies that—yes, he does.

Not that he's been staring.

It's 2 AM, but that's the only time Denny's sees Lance, and honestly, it's the only time Lance wants to see Denny's. It's the vibe; the interdimensional feeling of buzzing fluorescent lights glaring against slick green booths and beige acrylic tabletops. The people who file in and out of the chain diner are usually quiet at this time, passing through like ghosts or never to be seen again. Odds are they're travelers. The desperate few staying at the economically friendly motel across the street known as the Sunshine Inn with more neon lighting than a strip club.

He rarely sees a face he recognizes that isn't the staff. They knew him well by his third week walking in, but to Lance, even they still don't feel real sometimes.

"Can I start you off with something to drink?"

Right—this guy.

He's the newest addition to the third shift Denny's crew, and from the second Lance laid eyes on him, he knew he hated his job. Not that Lance expects anyone to love their night owl, minimum wage corporate employment, but the guy's demeanor is scathing in all aspects. Disinterested grey eyes, an entirely unconscious pout and a lean frame that awkwardly slants into apathy. He hates Denny's, and by association, he hates Lance.

Lance smiles at the thought.

"Just coffee and water right now."

"Word," the waiter says coolly.

_Charming._

He drifts away, but Lance's voice is like a duck call. From the kitchen, there's the sound of metal utensils colliding with the scalding flattop, and suddenly, a head appears in the kitchen window.

Hunk leans over the warming bar, obnoxiously smacking the bell, and the heat lamp illuminates his head like a halo. It makes sense. Hunk, a fellow peer in the school of engineer at their local university, is Lance's purest constant. Having met freshman year, they'd bonded over being able to bilingually shit talk and smoked so much kush during sophomore finals, Lance had finally openly panicked about his bisexual crisis. Not only had Hunk not cared, he'd suggested Lance 'chill' and reread his formulas before he flunked himself into a fifth year of undergraduate.

"It's almost like I just saw you," Hunk says, rolling a toothpick between his lips. "Don't you have a house? I'm pretty sure you have a house. Maybe you should like—I don't know—go there sometime. Unless you just like the feeling of telling people at Denny's you pay rent."

Lance reaches and fixes his smoky blue beanie with a slight tug. He leans forward with a slanted smile and gestures with a tilted victory sign.

"I've been here for three seconds and you're giving me shit. Buddy, shouldn't you be doing your job or something?"

" _Uhm_ —I'm pretty sure giving you shit is actually my part-time job."

"The pay must be terrible."

"Yeah, but the benefits totally outweigh the salary."

Lance narrows his stare, but the corner of his smile hooks higher. "Benefits being—"

"Oh, you know," Hunk starts, pointedly aloof. "Being right all the time, and I guess making you a functioning member of society is pretty cool, too."

He feigns offense, his hand hitting his heart. "I function in society just fine."

"You're at a Denny's at 2 AM."

" _You're_ at a Denny's at 2 AM!"

There's a small snort from the drink bar, and Lance glances up, suddenly distracted by his waiter again. Polite jawline, dark and angled brows, a delicate throat that sinks into pointed clavicles; Lance realizes the observations he's making and drums his fingers along the tabletop.

_I know you haven't gotten it in since the Cold War or whatever, but like, stop it.  
Love yourself as much as he hates his job._

He sure is pretty, though.

Like, fuck, since when had men started being that _pretty_?

Anyway, Lance is at Denny's because he works late. Every weekend, from five in the afternoon to two in the morning, he haunts The Voltron, an ancient laser tag zone that hasn't seen an aesthetic update since 1998. He isn't sure what it is about the place, but he romances the hell out of it. In fact, he's the only person he knows who likes their college job.

Maybe it's the molten nacho bar; maybe it's the swirling orange, purple and green carpet he's scrubbed vomit out of more times than he'd like to remember; maybe it's really just the unadulterated fun of pretending to assassinate your friends. Lance never thought infrared-sensitive targets would steal his heart, but if he had to describe his life goals with two occupations, then it'd be astronaut and professional laser tag competitor.

Surprisingly, he finds himself closer to being an astronaut than the captain of a laser tag team. This has baffled him for years, but he supposes it's one of those hobbies like collecting baseball cards or Beanie Babies. It's a bygone thing and cooler in nostalgic television.

The waiter steps directly in front of Lance's line of vision, and Lance is given the full breadth of his apron veiled crotch. He leans back and clears his throat, arching an eyebrow.

"Here's your coffee."

Too dismissive to be called graceful, the cup slides in front of him and a fistful of creamer cups drop beside it. The water follows, and suddenly, a black stream is pouring before Lance's eyes, coming from a high and daring place also known as I Hope This Fucking Burns Your Mouth.

"Do you know what you want?" his waiter asks, a hand on his hip and eyes boring into Lance's amused gaze. There's no pen in hand, and he's not going to write this down.

_Big mistake, dude._

At this point, Lance is damn near impressed by how little this guy is trying. His attitude makes it sound like he's praying for a fight, and maybe he is, but mostly likely, he'll be fired before that happens. One encounter with a soccer mom in chevron print, and it'll be sayonara. Lance squints at the waiter's black t-shirt, looking for a name tag, and then he finds it. Beside a condescending 'Hi, My Name Is!' there's the lopsided, black and white printed sticker that says 'KEITH.'

Lance clears his throat, and without missing a beat:

"Can I get wheat toast, lightly toasted and lightly buttered, three pieces of bacon, extra crispy but not with the burnt ends that, like, get jammed in your teeth, hash browns, the works minus the onion and pepper, eggs over easy with the the whites still runny and smothered in American cheese, and then an Oreo shake put in the freezer while the food cooks so that it's _thick_."

The look Keith gives Lance lets the man know he will _make sure_ those eggs are runny in hopes he gets salmonella and promptly dies.

" _Right_ ," Keith says, the single vowel dragging out for eons.

He turns around, coffee pot still in hand, and walks up to the window where Hunk is patiently waiting, expression expectant. Keith isn't there long enough to repeat half the order before he returns the pot to its burner and checks on his next table.

Lance is already lamenting his milkshake. His soupy, soupy milkshake.

_What a bastard._

In the distance, a child screams, and Keith pauses mid-path and closes his eyes. Lance is watching a man curdle from the inside out, and he's enjoying every dribble of sourness.

Keith only opens his eyes when the front doors' bell chimes. The child's screaming is drowned by the intermingled shouting of drunk college students. Lance recognizes them as heckling frat boys. He even knows some of them from when they'd hangout at The Voltron.

He hasn't seen them since The Myth disappeared.

Their ruckus is met by Keith's paled expression, but personally greeted by Allura the general manger. An aspiring bodybuilder, Lance fears her as any man should, but also, she's been his problematic favorite of the Denny's crew for years. More than once, he's watched her gather up harassing college boys and send them flying out the front door with an unwavering 'get the hell out of my restaurant.' If her waitress was ever unfairly tipped, then she was the first out the door, chasing the party down with two fingers lifted and an endless stream of insults.

So many times he'd heard the words: I _am_ the manager.

Lance knows the sheer mass of these men is why she greets them first.

"Are you all going to behave if I seat you?" she asks, words like the Sahara.

There's a chorus of 'yes, ma'am,' and then biting laughter that makes Lance internally wrinkle. He knows this type well, and he slurps the final dregs of his lukewarm coffee. The child screams again, and Lance can't figure out why someone would have their kid out at two in the morning.

He looks to find the gremlin, but his attention is diverted to his waiter who still hasn't moved.

The way Keith's shoulders hike and his expression hardens tells Lance something. What that 'something' is he can't decipher, but it's enough that he doesn't mind that his mug has dried.

As soon as the fleet of men are ushered toward the opposite end of the dining room, Keith strides toward the kitchen. Tray at his hip and fingers calmly pushing back his bangs, Lance reaches for his phone and pretends to be distracted by his screen when, really, he wonders if the entire staff is aware of whatever's bothering Keith. He figures he could ask Hunk later, but that's invasive.

He only pretends to care about that last part.

The table is seated, and as Lance could've predicted, it's suddenly rowdy. Every other word is someone yelling 'fuck you,' which is fine. Lance tells everyone, especially those he loves, to 'fuck off' nearly once a day, but it's 2 AM, and there's a child in the vicinity. The 'fuck you' escalates into overbearing laughter tearing free like braying donkeys, and while Lance wants to look at Hunk and give him a stare of solidarity, he's too busy cooking for a table of bulls.

Allura is standing at the host podium with crossed arms, watching them. Lance knows that look, and it's only a matter of time before she jerks them out by their meaty jowls.

_Dinner and a show._

Because there's nothing else to do, Lance submits to his phone and drags finger after finger across its surface. He's startled when coffee begins filling his mug again, and he looks up to see Keith and his weighted expression. If Lance didn't know better, then he'd say Keith's knuckles were white, on the brink of breaking the plastic handle in two. Other than that, he's still bored.

"So, like, do you like nightshift?"

The wry smile implies Lance knows this answer, but he's trying to lighten the mood.

"It's my favorite," Keith manages, clearly having not expected Lance to speak to him. It's then Lance notices the gravel along Keith's throat, a deepness that throws him. Keith glances back to Allura who hasn't torn her gaze from her sole table. He vacantly says the next words, not even looking at Lance. "I love it."

There's a crash in the distance, the shattering of porcelain followed by 'ooohs' and throaty laughter that grates Lance's nerves. Keith's wrist loosens as he watches Allura barrel toward the horde of men, and they're both too distracted to notice when the coffee begins pouring again. Said coffee bubbles over the mug's rim and pours out in a brown fall that puddles across the table. Lance mouths 'whoa' when Allura clasps onto the back of the chair and effortlessly yanks it out for a piggish athlete who probably could've killed him with a look.

Lance jolts and he's suddenly pushing back from the table, but because he's in a booth, there's nowhere to go. A panic riles him as his lap stings.

"Hot— _fuck_. That is really, really, really hot. That is a vasectomy. That is—" His voice reaches another octave at that final thought, and his voice cracks. " _Hot_!"

Keith smacks down the coffee pot when he realizes what he's done, and his pupils are blown in horror.

Before Lance knows what's happening, Keith is on his knees beside him, a stained white towel in one hand and a clump of paper napkins in the other, mopping up along the rim of the table to stop the flow onto Lance's lap. He doesn't bother soaking up what's on the table, and instead, uses his bare hands and supplies to push the boiling liquid toward the opposite end of the table. It drips onto the opposite seat, and when it stops pouring onto Lance, Keith plants the towel onto Lance's lap and begins to rub.

Lance opens his mouth and his burnt navel dips back, Keith's hand still working him over. He blinks, feels a different kind of heat climb his throat, and all at once, his face is red. There is a hand on his crotch, and it's a nice looking hand connected to an even nicer looking face. More than nice, really. Lance can't remember the last time he's seen someone so objectively attractive.

"You really don't have to. I can…" Lance thinks about things like his naked grandmother, and also, you know, his burnt dick. Puppies, orphanages, Mr. Rogers, the Law of Conservation of Energy, Muppets—man, puppets _really_ unsettle him.

But Keith is still rubbing, and Lance is glad he's in pain, because when Keith pushes back his bangs and slides the towel between Lance's thighs to dry what's landed on the the front of the booth, Lance can't breathe. His throat tightens, and he finally reaches between his knees to grab Keith's wrist. It's warm flesh on flesh, and suddenly, Keith is a real person and not an extension of the Denny's alternate universe. He brings Keith's hand up with the towel, panting from what he hopes seems like pain, and then inspects Keith's fingers. They're scalded, red and irritated from the instinctual response to make sure Lance wasn't further injured.

This would've been a touching moment had an eruption of yelling not lifted behind Keith like an oncoming typhoon.

Keith jerks his hand from Lance's grip and stands with a threatening look over his shoulder. He turns around in time to watch Allura lift a fist, and that's all it takes for Keith to start sprinting. Already halfway across the dining room, there's a table between Keith and Allura, but Keith doesn't seek to evade it. Instead, he boldly smacks the heels of his palms against the center and proceeds to vault himself across it. As if gravity is an option, he catapults forward and gracefully lands on his feet before skidding between the pig and Allura with a head snap and punch.

Wait.

Lance isn't sure why he's on his feet. It's not like he can really do anything. He'd once referred to himself as a buckwheat noodle, which he's fine with. He likes being a buckwheat noodle.

But wait, wait, wait.

Scorched to hell and back and still recovering from Keith's saintly rubbing, he's not sure where his mind is going, but it's suddenly back on laser tag.

The guy throws a punch, and while Allura breaks the throw with her death grip, Keith darts back with an agility that makes Lance's heart thrum. Lance is suddenly sweating, and he's not sure why, but again, he thinks it might have something to do with laser tag.

It's always laser tag.

Keith skids back, and someone in the group says his name. This confirms that there's something there that'd previously unsettled Keith, but now, Keith's not there for it.

A plate is thrown followed by utensil after utensil, and Keith ducks with a reflex that backhands Lance. He charges the same guy who was in Allura's face, but a sharp whistle carries across the entirety of the Denny's. Customers are on their feet along with Lance, startled into stillness, but that sharp note cuts through the conflict like a steak knife. Everyone stops moving.

Lance snaps a finger in front of his face and looks to see that it's Hunk standing on a table, holding a phone high.

"Either leave now or I'm calling the police, and then we _all_ get in trouble!"

This threat knocks the wind out of the boys, and it only takes one grabbing his jacket to bring hustle to the rest of them. One by one, they dart out of the restaurant, and Keith is left panting in front of Allura whose expression is dark, infuriated.

Keith pauses to inspect his hands that're clearly hurting him. He grips them tight and reaches to flip a chair upright, gather fallen utensils.

"Keith, go on break," Allura says.

It's an order, not a suggestion.

"Let me help you clean this table."

"I can clean a table."

Hunk hops off the table with a grunt and rights his shoulders. He looks at Lance and rolls his eyes, but Lance is still gawking. He's been to Denny's twice a week for almost four years, but he knows he's never seen a waiter kick almost as much ass as Allura.

"Your foods up," Hunk says and then grabs the food for him. The plates clatter on the table that's still soaked with coffee. "Do I even want to know what happened here?"

"No," Lance quickly answers, and he looks past Hunk to watch Keith drift, not into the breakroom, but directly into the Kids' Zone. "Did you see that guy…"

"Keith," Hunk says, finally giving Lance appropriate reason to know Keith's name. "Yeah—he's pretty wild. One time, this massive stack of dishes almost hit the floor, and he not only dodged all of them, but he caught the bulk of it. He's fast. Allura hates him as a waiter, but she like, also loves him more than me. Probably the relatability through being unassuming."

"Thanks for that, Freud," Lance murmurs and then brushes past Hunk, forgetting about his food and trailing toward Keith. "Can I grab my milkshake from the freezer?" 

"Keith didn't mention the milkshake."

No one, especially Lance, is surprised.

He pats Hunk's chest and mutters 'thanks for the food, big guy' before slinking toward the dark haven Keith disappeared into.

He finds Keith playing Galaga in the very back of the frail arcade. Shoulders hiked, he's tapping the button again and again, and from behind, Lance watches him slaughter alien ship after alien ship with a slanted mouth.

"Did you know you kind of majorly kicked ass back there?" Lance asks, taking a step deeper into the domain. The glow of flashing bulbs is unnerving, the creams and unrelenting neon red casting strange shadows between them. Lance notices a crimson slice of light across Keith's fixated face. "Like, you fucking flew over that table. I've never seen anything like it before. Well, maybe in men's gymnastics, but other than that? Nothing remotely close."

Keith doesn't look up. Rather, he plays harder and determinedly doesn't acknowledge Lance. His jaw is tight, eyes focused and resolute.

"Do you play laser tag?" Lance pushes.

The 8-bit cry of death abruptly blares from the box, and Keith slumps over the control deck with a slamming fist as the taunting music plays. He pushes himself back and turns around, pressing the end of his spine to the game. His arms immediately sit across his chest, and he cuts Lance a lethal look.

"No," he says, and it's flat. Tired. "Why are you even asking?"

"Because you're fast, and then the way you avoided those plates?" Lance lifts two finger guns and begins to playfully blast, his mouth in a crooked smile. Accompanying the shots are the appropriate 'pow, pow, pow,' and he eventually grins. "I think you'd be killer at it."

"What was that noise again?" Keith asks, but his tone is lighter.

"Pow, pow, pow, son."

He lifts a single brow and rests his elbows against the deck, almost, _almost_ smiling. "Are you that desperate for a friend that you have to ask me to play laser tag with you?"

"Don't flatter yourself, _Keith_. I want a team to play professional laser tag with."

"That so doesn't exist."

Lance drops his finger guns and takes another handful of steps toward Keith. The top scores flash across the Galaga console's screen, and Lance notices Keith's name at the top.

"Why would I lie about that? Okay, look, _fine_. Give me the time of day. Give me two minutes of your day, and then you can determine if I'm a liar or not."

Keith purses his lips, and he glances to the side as he thinks on it. "What do you even get out of professional laser tag?"

"Glory."

Keith is unconvinced, and Lance can see this, but he doesn't falter in determination. An amalgamation of arcade music swells around them as Keith's face becomes thoughtful, and his shoulders suddenly sag as he lifts a palm.

"Whatever. Alright."

But Keith realizes something, and he pinches the bridge of his nose. Lance expects him to withdraw his agreement, and he's ready to take the guy to court over it, but Keith only rubs his temple in slow circular motions.

"What's your name?" he asks, and it dawns on Lance he never introduced himself. His next words are breathed more for himself than Lance. "I agreed to this, and I don't even know your _name_. Why…"

"Lance McClain," he says, too fast. Too eager. He's so eager to get this guy on his side, and while he smells his own putrid desperation, he can't let Keith get away. "How're your hands?"

"Probably better than your dick, to be honest."

"Honestly, I'm so excited I can't feel anything right now. My nerve endings? Dead. We're gonna need to find a necromancer if I want kids or whatever."

Keith flits his stare to the side and something between a cough and laugh pithily leaves his mouth. He rolls his eyes back to Lance who's beaming, unable to stop smiling.

"Gross," Keith loosely says and then pushes himself forward. "Do you need my number or something?"

Lance lifts his phone and opens a new contact. He quickly types in Keith's name, and then hands the device over.

Keith stares down at his own name.

"Wait—how did you know _my_ name?"

Lance reaches and tenderly flicks the name tag pinned to Keith's heart.

"Dude. You're right there."


End file.
